This invention relates to photocomposing apparatuses and more particularly to a manually operating photocomposing apparatus which can store as an image signal all of characters which have been selected from a character matrix, which can determine the amount of feed of each character and subsequently reproduce a character image on a display means, and which can print the displayed character image on a photosensitive medium.
Contrary to a composing apparatus, a conventional photocomposing apparatus has the disadvantage that it is extremely difficult to displace those characters which have been printed on a photosensitive medium for the purpopse of correcting the characters or adjusting a character space. As a result, in the case of using the connventional manually operating photocomposing apparatus so as to effect a special composition in which the amount of feed of the characters could not easily be determined such, for example, as solid composition to be effected within a line having a given length, European character form, form of chemical symbols and the like, it has been the common practice to require prior to composing a very troublesome pretreatment such as distribution of characters or so-called allotment calculation, calculation of the amount of feed of characters and the like.
In the case of effecting a sort of special so-called solid photocomposition of those characters which are sufficiently spaced apart from each other such, for example, as "W" and "A" as well as A and "T" as shown in FIG. 1a and Japanese Kana (character) " " (shi) and " " (U) as shown in FIG. 2a, the character space is reduced and a portion of each character is protruded into the adjacent character region as shown in FIG. 1b and FIG. 2b, respectively. Such solid photocomposition has required a careful pretreatment. In addition, print in practice has required troublesome operations such as change of the amount of feed and the like and considerably long time, and as a result, a great burden had been imposed on an operator of the conventional photocomposing apparatus.
That is, in the customary composition of Japanese characters, the amount of feed of the characters is uniformly determined if the size of characters is determined. In the solid composition, however, the presence of a character space renders it possible to reduce the amount of feed of these characters, while the absence of such space makes the reduction impossible. In addition, the amount which is capable of reducing the amount of feed could not clearly be determined unless the adjacent characters are aligned with each other. As a result, heretofore it has been the common practice to print the characters to be solidly printed on films and the like and superimpose these films one upon the other so as to calculate that amount of feed which can be reduced or to provide a photocomposing apparatus which can form an image of the characters to be printed on a finder and the like. In such photocomposing apparatus, the image formed on the finder is transferred onto a sheet of paper and the like and then the image of character to be printed is formed adjacent to the preceeding image, whereby the amount of feed which can be reduced is calculated.
These methods have the disadvantage that it is difficult to precisely calculate the amount of feed which can be reduced, that the above described calculation must be effected for each character, that a plenty of time is required, and that a great burden is imposed on an operator of the photocomposing apparatus.
As above described, Japanese characters " " (shi) and " " (u) shown in FIG. 2a can be solidly composed as those shown in FIG. 2b. In order to obtain the composed as shown in FIG. 2b, the characters " " (shi) and " " (u) are divided into A to J portions in X direction and a to j portions in Y direction. Spaces between those portions which can be overlapped with each other are reduced so as to suuperimpose Jf portion of the character (shi) upon Gf portion of the character (u). As seen from FIG. 2c, if the character space is reduced by 7 portions or steps, then the picture image of one of the characters overlaps the other character, so that it is preferable to reduce the space between the two characters by 6 portions or steps as shown in FIG. 2b. As a result, if the number of divided units a to j and A to J are made equal to the number of feed units of the photocomposing apparatus, a desired solid composition can be effected.
If the prohibition mark "(" is present at the end of line 1 as shown in FIG. 3a, this prohibition mark is made located at the beginning of line 2 as shown in FIG. 3b, and as a result, the number of characters on line 1 shown in FIG. 3a is reduced. Thus, it is necessary to suitably increase the character space so as to make its line length equal to the line length of line 2 as shown in FIG. 3b. Such treatment is called as a line end prohibition treatment. Similarly, if the prohibition mark is present at the beginning of line, so-called line beginning prohibition treatment can be effected. Thus, the operator of the photocomposing apparatus must always pay his attention to the position of the prohibition mark. If the prohibition mark is located at a position from which the prohibition mark must be removed by the prohibition treatment or the prohibition mark located at the end of a line is transferred to the beginning of the next line, the remainder of characters on the preceeding line must increase a spacing therebetween and the amount of feed of one character must be distributed over several characters by calculation.
In Japan, about 5,000 characters are used so that it is substantially impossible to take all of the above combinations of these characters into consideration. As a result, these combinations must manually be effected by an operator. Such manual operation becomes very troublesome if a case at which a line length is given or another case at which the line length is not given are taken into consideration.
Similarly, in the case of composing European characters whose widths are different from each other on a given length of line, whether or not the characters can be aligned on the given line could not be discriminated unless the print has been completed. As a result, a trial print is previously effected so as to ascertain the presence of the remainder of the line length and then a calculation is effected so as to allocate the remainder of the line length over word spaces, and finally a real print must be effected. Such steps in succession imposed a great burden on an operator of the conventional photocomposing apparatus and provided the disadvantage that a composition efficiency becomes lowered and that the composition becomes erroneous.
Even in the photocomposing apparatus which does not require the above described trial printing, a careful pretreatment of effecting an allotment calculation has been required prior to the real printing in the above described special form such as a prohibition treatment, setting calculation, flush right and left, flush centered, chemical constructional formula form, music note and the like. In addition, such operation of changing the amount of feed must be effected at every printing. The prohibition treatment shall be understood to mean a treatment in which special marks which are called as prohibition marks such as period "." and ".degree." or parenthesis mark "(" should not be located at the beginning of line or at the end of line. In addition, in the case of real printing, the amount of feed must be changed in response to the prohibition treatment. Such treatments must also be effected in the case of special forms such as form calculation, flush right and left, flush centered, chemical constructional formula form, music note and the like. Thus, a careful allotment calculation must be effected prior to the real printing. In addition, the amount of feed must be changed every time the printing is effected. As a result, similar to the above described solid composition and composition of the European characters, a great burden is imposed on an operator of the photocomposing apparatus and an composition efficiency becomes lowered and the composition becomes erroneous.